


Bury Me Tightly Now

by ADyingFlower



Series: Ardynoct Week [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Twins, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Dark, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Obsession, One-Sided Attraction, Possessive Behavior, Sibling Incest, Some slight objectification, The Fall Of The House of Usher Themes, The gladnoct content is platonic and pure, Twincest, Yandere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 06:26:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADyingFlower/pseuds/ADyingFlower
Summary: Ardyn and him slept in separate rooms. According to their parents anyhow.They were separated when they weres seven, when it was no longer appropriate to have two children squander in a room for one when there was room for their own. Noctis remembered that he hadn’t made too much of a fuss about it, thinking that maybe he could actually sleep in his own bed for once. Ardyn, though…he had pulled such a fit over separating from his twin that it was only their father’s threat of boarding school far out in the countryside that eventually calmed him down.That very first night, Ardyn had crept into his room well after their parents had gone to bed and nudging him from his doze. Without a word, his brother had climbed into bed, slid his hands right up his shirt to feel his side, and fell asleep curled up like that.He left before their parents awoke them for the day, and for every night since then it’s been the same.





	Bury Me Tightly Now

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry???
> 
> This is honestly quite dark (though not as dark as perhaps Darling Your Looks Can Kill, So Now You're Dead) so heed the tags people. 
> 
> And as I've stated. Their's a _lot_ of incest going on here.

“He loves me, he loves me not…”

A daisy with half of its petals missing. The distant sound of church bells, children laughing as bare feet ran through the fields.

“He loves me, he loves me not…"

Their mother’s laugh, high and false. The swinging of the kitchen door. His tutor’s stern face when he dozed off during lessons.

“He loves me, he loves me not…"

The smell of cookies. Flower petals, once yellow, dyed black. A warm hand settled in the small of his back.

“He loves me, he loves me not…"

Everything was burning. Black strands, always black hair. His twin’s side tucked into his own, two becoming one.

“He loves me, he loves me not…"

The house is crumbling. The family’s vaults, dusty with age. Their father’s voice as he explained what _presentation_ was.

“He loves me, he loves me not…"

Red hair, a genetic mutation, a red in a sea of black. A spot of blood. The toll of a church’s bell slowly counting down to zero.

“He loves me, he loves me not…"

Bare feet, bruised and bloody, sprinting through the dark. The scent of fear choking the air. A tender hand wiping away his tears.

“He loves me, he loves me not…"

Lonely. He was so lonely. The cage is closing in -

“Noct?”

The young boy looked up, the last petal held loosely in his hand, taunt and held ready to yank out.

“Noct.” The other boy looked relieved, taking a seat by his side in the grass. A hand stroked through his hair, once, twice, before drifting to his hip and pulling both of them together. “Mama wants us for dinner, so we have to wash up.”

“‘Mkay.” Noctis blinked, nodding slowly. Gently, he plucked the last petal and let it fly loose in the wind. “...Loves me.”

Ardyn tilted his head. “Who are you saying it too?” Something dark passed over his face briefly, a threat of violence. The hand over his hip tightened, and it took all he could not to flinch under the nails digging into his side.

“You.” It wasn’t.

His twin’s face relaxed at that admission, leaning forward to bump foreheads with him briefly. “Silly.” Ardyn scolded him lightly, brushing his lips against his cheek before withdrawing. “I already love you so much, never doubt that.”

Noctis knew that. They were twins, of course they loved each other, Ardyn could just be a bit…clingy. He had to be careful if he didn’t want his older brother by only a few minutes to sulk for the rest of the week. “Love you more.”

“Nuh uh!” Ardyn’s face brightened in a huge smile, and the hand on his hip finally loosened. “Race you back!”

At that, Ardyn broke out into a sprint, leaving Noctis in the dust with a “No fair!”

 

Ardyn and him slept in separate rooms. According to their parents anyhow.

They were separated when they weres seven, when it was no longer appropriate to have two children squander in a room for one when there was room for their own. Noctis remembered that he hadn’t made too much of a fuss about it, thinking that maybe he could actually sleep in his own bed for once. Ardyn, though…he had pulled such a fit over separating from his twin that it was only their father’s threat of boarding school far out in the countryside that eventually calmed him down.

That very first night, Ardyn had crept into his room well after their parents had gone to bed and nudging him from his doze. Without a word, his brother had climbed into bed, slid his hands right up his shirt to feel his side, and fell asleep curled up like that.

He left before their parents awoke them for the day, and for every night since then it’s been the same.

 

“We aren’t supposed to be here…” Noctis trailed off nervously, eyes darting all over the ancient and cracked stone walls.

“Well,” Ardyn smirked over his shoulder at him, his red hair a bright spotlight among the darkness. Their aunties talked about it often, when the two of them eavesdropped by the kitchen door. A family with hair as dark as night from generation from generation, and then there was Ardyn. An omen, they often said, but an omen of what? “It’s only against the rules if they find out, so no tattle tailing!”

Noctis mimed zipping his mouth shut, not wanting to find out what would happen if he tattled. The last time he did, Ardyn had pushed him into the pool and left him there for hours.

The two of them traveled deeper and deeper into the catacombs, the only light the torch Ardyn held high above his head. His grip to his brother’s hand was slick with sweat, but Ardyn only held tighter with every passing attempt to withdraw.

Golden light reflected off the low lighting of the torch, and Ardyn stepped forward one last time to admire the scene pictured in front of them like in their mother’s portraits.

Beyond the rusted gate was a line of tombs, all encrusted with a familiar crest and last name, of every member of their household from the very beginning.

“That’s where you’ll be someday.” Ardyn whispered, excited and eager. He tugged on his smaller hand, forcing him to stumble into his strangling hold as his hand tipped his chin towards the line of graves, the line of bodies. “You’ll lie there next to all of your ancestors, body as cold as ice and all of your blood drained out of your body.”

He was shaking, he thinly realized.

“Oh, but don’t worry. I won’t put you here when you die, it’s much too gloomy. No, perhaps I’ll keep you in my chambers, climb in with you whenever I have a nightmare. That sounds nice, doesn’t it?” Ardyn cooed in his ear, curling around his shaking shoulders and sliding a thumb down his cheek in mockery of a teardrop.

Noctis felt sick to his stomach, all nausea curling low in his throat and a vague sense of fear. He didn’t want that, he didn’t want to be…used, like that, when he was dead and gone. He wanted to be buried into the ground and forgotten forever, but Ardyn would never forget him.

The thought filled him with more fear than he thought it would.

 

Their mother’s voice rose and fell in fever pitch as she waved her hands along to the story, Noctis the only one at this point bothering to listen to her speak. Ardyn and their father were both disinterestedly picking at their food, occasionally making faces at their mother when she wasn’t looking.

He didn’t understand why they were so mean to her. She was nothing but kind to the both of them, but yet there was a terrifying lack of it being returned.

“ - And you and Ardyn only spoke in that secret language between the two of you for years before we finally convinced you to start actually speaking.” She laughed lightly, and Noctis cracked a smile just to watch her face light up. She reached across the table, then, and her hand is still bigger than his as she wraps it around his own.

“Meus,”

The smile on their mother’s face faded away, quickly releasing his hand to withdraw into herself, and for the first time he notices how both Ardyn and his father are glaring at her, his twin brother clenching the end of the table so hard between white knuckles that a faint crack is forming, and one that would stay there for the rest of their lives.

“Ardyn, take your brother and go play.” Their father orders, and Ardyn easily slides to his feet and crosses the several feet in between them in seconds. Noctis had barely any time to recognize the resignation on his mother's face before his brothers hand is on his upper arm and is dragging him away from the dining hall, the door slamming shut behind them like the caskets in the basement being closed, final like death itself.

 

That’s the first time he learns what presentation is, and he prays to every god that exists that he doesn’t end up like his mother, all nervous touches and a bright, distant sheen in her eyes.

 

It’s nearly half a year later when their father cancels their private tutoring and instead enrolls them into a private school in a nearby town.

“Making friends outside the household is good for your social skills.” Their father answers reedley when they ask, a maid fluttering around and serving the family snacks and drinks while their father explains his reasoning. “I expect you all to grow apart and develop separate interests, but remember, keep the bloodline pure.”

Keep the bloodline pure. That’s what he's been hearing for years, but he’s still unsure on what exactly it entails.

Ardyn’s hand squeezes his limp one under the table. “Yes, father.”

 

He meets Gladiolus Amicitia the first day of his transfer into the private school, and wonders (not for the first time) if him and Ardyn are just one person, and not in a good way.

“You got any interests?” Gladio, as he demanded he call him, asked him idly during lunch. Ardyn had been swarmed almost the instant they stepped through the iron gates, so Noctis had been left on his own to wander. He knew his brother wanted him to just find a quiet corner to read and wait for his return - his exact words in the car ride this morning - but Gladio had seeked him out minutes into his self-isolation, and the rest was history.

“I...uh…” He trailed off, not sure what to say. Him and Ardyn did so many things together it sometimes blurred in his mind what his twin enjoyed and what _he_ really enjoyed.

Gladio stared after him a moment longer, and then clicked his tongue. “It’s fine, how about this? My dad’s going on a fishing trip in a week, come with us. We camp out for a couple of days under the stars and tough it out in the wild.”

It was something Ardyn defiantly wouldn’t have done. His brother loved his finer comforts, the antiquity of the family’s library and the softness of his clothes. He would have hated it, staying out with all the bugs and dirt.

Noctis loved the idea.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could spot Ardyn stomping towards him in a way that meant being locked in an empty room for hours on end and then suffering his overbearing affection until his mood calmed down, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Yes,” Noctis breathed out. “I would love that.”

 

Meeting Gladio had only been the tip of the iceberg, quite literally. Gladio had taken it in hand that he was going to make him friends, one way or the other,  and had introduced him to nearly everyone in their grade. By the end of the week, he had a list of friends as long as his name and several engagements lined up to stay at someone’s villa for the break or an invitation to a birthday party.

Their father’s smile was proud when he chatted on and on about the friends he had made, occasionally interrupting his stream to point out a someone’s last name and remark on their family.

“I’ve been thinking,” Their father finally spoke when Noctis ran out of things to talk about, his cheeks flush with excitement. “That it might be in our best interests to…expand our family line.”

Ardyn stiffened.

“You can’t mean…father, what about keeping our line pure?!”

Their father glanced over at his redheaded son with a vaguely disdained expression. “Ah, yes. You’ve seen how well that has been working for us, Noctis has been an ill child from the day he was born and your hair is an obvious mutation in the line.”

His brother flinched, their father continuing without even a shift of the eyes his way. “The Amicitia’s are distant cousins of ours, we should be able to keep the line relatively pure and yet wash any filth from our ancestors from it.”

Noctis made a face. Marry Gladio? That was so gross on so many different levels. But wait… ”Father, I’m not an omega though, and neither is Ardyn.”

There was silence for a long time after that.

 

That night, Ardyn cornered him before bed, hands sliding everywhere across his skin and into his hair, tugging and ripping strands out at his leisure, ignoring his pleas for his brother to stop.

“We must keep the line pure.” Ardyn growled, yanking his shirt open hard enough that several buttons went flying. Noctis flailed against his hold, sliding away and only making it a few feet before his twin dragged him back each time. “I will not let some other scum carry a child inside you, no one will touch you but me, understand?”

“No no no no no no -” This was insanity, all of this.

With a final surge of energy, he shoved Ardyn off of him and fled away from his bedroom, down his hall and into a closet full of musty suits for the rest of the night, bloodshot eyes staring at the far wall and flinching at every sound from the world outside the closet.

He started locking his door at night, after that.

 

Both of the twins came down with similar illnesses several months later, holing up in their respective rooms for a week before reemerging with a new, hidden side of themselves.

Ardyn carried himself much the same, but their was a new light to his eyes, one of savage madness as his hands carted possessively down the small of Noct’s back and around his stomach, stopping around his navel and circling around where a woman’s womb would be, while Noctis…

Noctis curled around himself at the dinner table, his face pinched in horror every time his brother’s hand trailed down his back towards his waist line, lower and lower every time, no one at the dinner table daring to say anything.

It was the Caelum’s line job to keep the bloodline pure, and what better way than to betrothed the two sons together, perfectly presenting as an alpha and an omega.

“I always knew you would be an omega,” Ardyn whispered in his ear during dessert, when everyone was well on their way to a hangover in the morning. The hand carted further down his stomach, resting lightly on his thigh, uncomfortably close to places he didn’t want to think about, and he hid his grimace into the champagne glass. “We were fated together - star crossed lovers who killed themselves in a previous life to be born together again as twins.”

Noctis remembered that tale - their nanny telling it before bedtime with a bemused expression every time Ardyn begged for her to repeat it. It was innocent, a sweet gesture then, but nothing Ardyn ever did was without his intent.

“How long,” He finally musters up the courage to say, fingers strained white against the clear glass. “...How long?”

How long what? How long did his own twin brother lust after him? How long did this ridiculous idea of star crossed lovers come into his head? How long was he obsessed with keeping the line pure through _fucking_ his brother?!

How long did he fancy himself in love with Noctis?  

“Since the first time you smiled at me,” Ardyn answers truthfully, and there’s something so painfully soft in his expression that Noctis had to look away before he threw up all over his lap.

 

To get away from the oppressive atmosphere of the house, of his mother’s wild eyes when he balked at Ardyn’s attention, of the insistent knocking at his door all night, Ardyn standing outside his room for hours, waiting for him to unlock his door so they could share a bed again, Noctis fled for the summer to Gladio’s summer home.

Noctis didn’t even understand why he was so against the possible…ugh. All he could think about was a future where he would be locked away in the Caelum house for the rest of his life, all absent like his own mother was. He didn’t want to be like that. He didn’t want to have kids with his own brother.

Gladio’s home was nice, he got to meet his little sister Iris and they spent the days running around jumping in the lake and picking blueberries in the path up the mountain. Better yet, he walked freely with his omega scent and no one in the house said a word or gave him disapproving glances behind his back. If Iris and Gladio could be his siblings, a man as kind as Clarus as his father, then…

He would be the happiest he had ever been.

A week before school began, he finally came back to the Caelum house with a new splattering of freckles and two friendship bracelets wrapped around wrists, courtesy of Iris. Ardyn is waiting for him when he comes home, a near frantic mess.

Noctis pauses in the doorway, watching his twin pace back and forth across the waiting room, biting on his thumb in a sure way to make it bleed. His hair’s a mess, his clothes askewed, and his shoes don’t match the rest of his outfit.

In other words, a complete and utter mess.

“ _Please come home already, Noct_ …” He hears his twin whisper like a prayer, and it's too much. This is all too much. He just wants to get away already, but he’s fast approaching marrying age, and his father won’t hesitate, not with this. Not with Ardyn.

He needs to find a way out.

 

The way out finds its way to him, rather.

It’s him and Gladio, one night. Still tipsy from the wine they snuck from Ignis’ uncle’s alcohol cabinet, the two of them are the only ones awake at the moment. Prompto was already knocked out, the light weight he was, and Ignis was halfway there. Noctis had experience from one too many fancy family dinners with alcohol passed under the table to him while Gladio simply had the bulk to keep slugging them down.

He was laughing, pressing his face into the couch’s pillow. This was the most fun he had in ages, all soft colored and watery at the edges.

“I wish I could stay like this forever…” He whispers into the couch, eyes tearing up at the reminder. A month, a month until his birthday.

What’s wrong? Gladio seems to ask him, but everything’s so fuzzy now. He doesn’t want to get married, not to him. Not to Ardyn.

Noctis falls asleep then, so he misses the briefly horrified expression that paints its way across Gladio’s face, but it softens out quickly enough.

No, soften out isn’t the word to use. No where close to it.

 

Noctis is an omega quickly reaching marrying age with alarming speed when he receives a marriage letter in the mail.

It’s from the Amicitia family - a proposal of adoption. He would take on the family name and live with them as if he was a child of their family.

For the first time in months, he smiles, completely genuinely.

 

Ardyn freaks out.

 

“No no no no - I won’t allow it, you hear me? I WON’T ALLOW IT!” Ardyn screamed, hands yanking at his hair and pulling clumps of hair out by the handful.

Noctis whimpered, arms tucked protectively over his head as Ardyn switches between being raving mad and inconsolable sobs. He’s not even sure what’s worse.

They're in the basement, right near the family’s catacombs. His back was pressed against the golden and rusted bars, watching his brother scream and toss things around in a rage.

“Why?” His brother simply asks when the rage dies out of him, when the floor around him is cracked in pieces but yet Noctis kneels unharmed among all the damage.

“Because,” He finally says at last, oh so tired of this. “I don’t love you like you love me.”

Silence. Dust sat heavy in the air, the only sound of Ardyn’s ragged breathing moving in time to the heaving of his chest.

“Then,” Ardyn said, suspiciously light. “I’ll just wait for you to love me.”

Then, with one motion, he shoved open the gate leading to his ancestors graves and shoved him inside, locking him behind the once gilded gate and with hundreds of his deceased family’s expectations baring down at him.

 

Ardyn visited him everyday.

Or, as best as he could tell. There was no light unless Ardyn left a torch behind, there was no sound except for the ones he made himself. He gulped the water Ardyn gave him, because it was what he needed to survive, and thanked the heavens that Ardyn was too paranoid about overdosing him to give him heavy enough doses of drugs to render him completely vulnerable. He still had the pocket knife he carried with him everywhere before being locked in here, and he has his teeth if all else fails.

His brother came each day waxing poetics about love, about them, about the future they would have together. Noctis snarled and retreated further into the catacombs, back pressed against the stone statues of his family.

 

Time passes.

 

Was it worth it? He should just let Ardyn marry him, have kids and all that. Though he hates them. He hates kids so damn much, and he laughed and laughed and laughed when he interrupted Ardyn’s fantasies with that tibbit.

 

His fingers are bloody and raw, staining the white mockery of a dress he changed into, if only to rid himself from the griminess. He grins when Ardyn tries to touch him, digging torn finger into his tender flesh and watching their blood drip to the floor, two becoming one once more.

  


The loneliness lingers on the edge of his vision. Ghost taunt him in low whispers, but they’re growing growing growing -

And it’s exhausting, really. He’s so tired these days.

It’s hard to sleep when you’re mind won’t

_shut_

**_up_ **

But that’s okay. Everything will be okay.

 

Ardyn mentioned someone named Gladio, about marriage proposals, but it’s all brown slush in his head now. Brown, he likes brown. Much better than grey or yellow or _red_. Brown is good. They should have more brown, maybe he should consult someone about that.

 

It’s his mother, and she’s shaking. She’s trembling, quavering, wavering. But there are golden keys in her hands, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen life in her eyes.

“I love you.” She tells him. “My son.”

And when the sound of frantic footsteps sound down the hall, all she does is slide the keys under the gate for him to hide, a resigned smile on her face as she awaits judgement day.

 

You stare into the abyss, and the abyss stares back.

Kill him, it whispers. You think you should, but you don’t know if mother will approve. She’s been so quiet as late, she won’t play any games with you. All she does is stare, so you stare back.

That’s fine. You’re having enough fun.

 

There’s blood on the man’s coat.

It doesn’t bug you, but the grin he wears does.

You wonder if the two of you know each well. You think so, anyhow.

 

The keys jingle in your hand.

 

It’s night out when you finally emerge from the catacombs, steps clumsy and bumping into each other. But it’s okay.

The man will be so happy to see you again.

You make a brief detour before you follow your ears to the sounds of music, of festivities and laughter. Your stomach rumbles at the thought of food, but you ignore it.

Soon enough, you are there, bloody footprints behind you and shrieking of the banshees.

The doors swung open with a clatter, knocking everyone in the hall to silence. The man is there, staring at you with open shock - you with your bloody teeth and ripped dress. He’s talking with a vaguely familiar face, and you remember the smell of lake water and candy coating his tongue.

You close your eyes, and Noctis opens them.

 

Ardyn looks terrified, and he has every right to be. He scrambles backwards, going and going and going until his back hits a dessert table. Gladio keeps whispering about him being dead and he think he spots Ignis in the crowd, but he ignores it all. All but his twin brother.

He starts humming, and the kitchen blade shines golden in the chandelier light.

 

_“Love you, Ardyn!” Noctis sings, plopping a flower crown of sylleblossoms on Ardyn’s head with a smile. His brother grins back at him, and dives right for his sides, tickling him right over his shrieking laughs._

_“Love you too, silly.” Ardyn finally admits, but he’s beaming all the same._

 

“You want to be together?” Noctis hisses out, voice off-kilter, steps purposeful as he advances on his brother. Murmurs are encroaching on his conscience, but he pushes it away. He can’t handle it right now. “Fine. Fine, we’ll be _together_.”

Then he shoves Ardyn down underneath the golden light and raises the knife high above his head.

It made an odd squelching sound as it buries itself in Ardyn’s gut. It’s interesting, and he needs to hear it again. So he rips the knife out and jerks it back in.

He can hear Gladio screaming his name above the rising chaos of people fleeing the ballroom, but he watches Ardyn like he was supposed to have in that lunchroom all those years ago. Watches the light drain from his eyes, and the terror in his eyes when Noctis leans down to peck him on the lips.

It disappears somewhere around the seventh or the eighth stab, but he hardly notices. People are still watching, and he’s still stabbing, and _star crossed lovers who killed themselves reincarnated as twins_ -

No one would ever use the basement again.

Standing up from Ardyn’s corpse, blood soaking his skin completely from his elbows down and across his front, he turn to face the older crowd who was too nosy to flee. Among them, he can see his former friends, and he spares them one last genuine smile before it's too late.

“Noct, don’t-”

He shoves the entire row of candles off the dessert table, watching them alight the rug in front of him. There’s more screaming, but he knows his friends can get out in time.

Now…now he wants to crawl in bed with his big brother. His chest is too mushy to make a good pillow, but he makes it work. Escaping was exhausting, but now he could rest, and no more Caelum’s would exist. The catacombs would rot straight into the ground, and the family name would just be a stain on history.

But for now, he’ll sleep, and maybe in the next lifetime, the two of them could be reborn again, like the stories Ardyn would tell him after dinner.

Noctis closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him among the smouldering mansion.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
